Peshawar Copperware
04 December 2020
Constructed from twenty different sheets of copper heated to glowing redness to be stitched together, weighing some ten kilograms and engraved and chased with intricate patterns, the plate took four months of painstaking work. But today the buyer who would be aware of the value of the work is hard to come by. And so Safar Ali has not been offered the asking price of Rs 200,000. He produced it knowing well enough that it may be months before he might find a buyer for it. This piece was a labour of love for Ali. It epitomises his pride in the craft kept by his family through several generations.
Times were once very different, however. According to the 1931 Gazetteer for Peshawar district utensils of copper of ‘various shapes and sizes are made in the city in considerable quantity.’ The ornamentation of these wares was ‘simple and bold’. We are also told that Muslims were the only users of copperware and that this product was exported in large numbers from Peshawar.
With such a notable industry, it should be no surprise that the old quarter of Peshawar city is home to Bazaar Misgaran (from the Persian misgar for copper worker). In the last quarter of the 20th century, this street was crowded with stores vending copperware. Here elderly bearded gentlemen sipped sweet green tea with tourists as they haggled over prices amid beautifully worked copperware spilling out onto the pavement. Today Bazaar Misgaran is a misnomer for it has but two stores dealing with copperware. Both hang on by just a thread.
In a store established in 1860, Safar Ali began helping his father six decades ago when he was but six years old. Because a misgar is master of not just engraving and embossing, he learned how the sheets of copper were heated and soldered together so as to appear seamless. He learned too how the mass of metal was then shaped on the matrix by mallet to become a ewer, bowl, tray or teapot. Last of all comes mastery over the wielding of the stylus and the mallet.
Those were days when dower traditionally consisting of all kitchenware and cutlery from the largest cooking cauldron to the smallest teaspoon was entirely crafted copper. Ali, his late brother and their father were then busy men as they worked the small forge or shaped the sheets to meet a seemingly endless demand. The small, thin sound of mallets beating on copper sheeting coupled with the tinny ring of hammer on stylus resounded through the street for this family was not alone at it: the entire bazaar was choc-a-bloc with copper workers.
In 2007, Safar Ali, then working alone since the death of his brother some years earlier, shut down the Bazaar Misgaran store. For the first time in its one hundred and forty-seven years of existence the store could not pay its keep. In all these years, the store had played host to personalities such as Queen Elizabeth and US vice president Nelson Rockefeller, besides a host of other dignitaries.
The Lok Virsa museum in Islamabad and its periodic exhibitions and festivals became Ali’s outlet. All that he produces ends up on the temporary stalls set up in the museum’s premises. A sign of changing times was that though the master copper craftsman of Peshawar taught his sons the art he had learned from his father, they did not pursue it. They preferred other lines of work instead.
In a desperate bid to put Peshawar on the world tourist map again, the revamped Tourism Corporation Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has offered succour to the endangered crafts of the province – among them copper work. Established in the two century-old residence of General Paolo Avitabile, governor of Peshawar under Maharaja Ranjit Singh, the academy houses workshops of over a dozen different artisans. With a stipend of Rs 10,000 per month, Ali is here entrusted with two apprentices.
The instruction is slow because of the virtually non-existent market, but the two students are shaping up well. Ali points out that a good learner of copper work is one who can abide by the tedious sharpening of the stylus after every five square centimetres of surface has worked it to bluntness. That they learn, might keep the art alive after him, but Ali fears that without sales, his two pupils like his sons may not practice the craft.
‘Copper craftsmanship is like stagnating water nowadays. There is no outlet for it,’ says Khwaja Safar Ali. Without outward movement of products there is every chance that his students will be obliged to look for alternative means in order to keep body and soul together.
Labels: A Chorus for Craft, Crafts
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
4 Comments:
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At 4 December 2020 at 04:39,
Mohd Rafi Yaacob said...
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Beautifully written sir..a mastery of love of beautiful craft of a season and matured writter like you indeed mesmerizing. The fate of copper wares business is also the same here in Malaysia. Once they were the pride items to own and use, now almost no buyers when other cheap items of different materials available. Old skills undoubtedly dying...your piece of writing documenting the industry. Tq for sharing.
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At 4 December 2020 at 08:24,
Himanshu Vashistha said...
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Thanks a lot Sir for the excellent article! Here also copper ware use is dying. Traditionally we used to have one in home ( We have but not sure about next ). Water stored in copper ware is considered as good , Ramjhara ( Water drinking pot is still common . One which has copper tube connected with pot body ).
One more common tradition Sir , whenever you are served water in a glass of copper or silver you should not drink by touching lips I.e. water should be drinked from a distance considering both the metals as auspicious. Infact Marwaris used to check for " Khandani Rais guest " by serving water in silver glass. If the guest drinks from a distance than its Khandani otherwise sm body else ....(:
With regards
Himanshu -
At 21 January 2021 at 08:33,
said...
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Sir, this is an excellent feature. Would like to print this in our magazine Fascinating Pakistan - a quarterly magazine that highlights the positive side of Pakistan. Please advise
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At 21 January 2021 at 09:57,
Salman Rashid said...
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Uzma Nawaz, please go ahead and print. If you need the images, kindly contact me on my email address given on this page.
http://odysseuslahori.blogspot.com/2013/01/about.html
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